Health Minister Josie Osborne said that wait times for cancer treatment in B.C. have been reduced. (Mike McArthur/CBC)
Emily Fagan · CBC News · Posted: Apr 07
Decision not due to U.S.-Canada trade war, says Health Minister Josie Osborne
Cancer patients in British Columbia will no longer be referred to clinics in Bellingham, Wash., for care, Health Minister Josie Osborne announced Monday.
Osborne says the ministry’s decision was not a result of the current U.S.-Canada trade war but due to declining participation in the program and shorter wait times for care in B.C.
“This has always been about delivering more cancer care for people closer to home,” she said.
“The investments we’ve made in more oncologists, more radiation therapy, therapists, improving hospital facilities, that’s what’s been able to enable us to reduce those wait times.”
The program, which has permitted 1,107 cancer patients to complete radiation treatment, was introduced to help battle long delays for treatment within B.C. An average of about 50 British Columbians a week received care in Bellingham at the program’s peak in the fall of 2023.
Osborne says it will conclude when contracts expire with the two private U.S. clinics at the end of May — two years after it was first announced.
She says it was planned as a temporary measure to reduce wait times while the province strengthened its own capacity for providing radiation therapy.
The province has paid more than $32 million for the programs as of the end of March 2025.
Osborne says that interest in seeking care through these clinics has declined, coinciding with an improvement in wait times for treatment within B.C.
About 93 per cent of British Columbians are now waiting less than four weeks to start radiation treatment, according to the province, above the national benchmark of 90 per cent.
This is a 24 per cent increase from when B.C. first announced plans to send patients to the U.S. for care in the spring of 2023.
Paul Adams, executive director of the B.C. Rural Health Network, says he is cautious about what the cancellation of this program could mean for the wait list of people awaiting treatment, particularly when work to add regional cancer care centres across the province is not complete.
“Our concern will be how people are going to be treated in a timely fashion,” he said.
